Synopsis

Rose Meets Mr.Wintergarten by Bob Graham

'A little kindness goes a long way,' is the subtle moral depicted in this gentle tale by award winning Australian authorial illustrator Bob Graham. All the children are afraid of mean Mr Wintergarten. His garden is grey and sunless and it is guarded, they say, by a dog like a wolf and a saltwater crocodile. By contrast, the garden of his sunny new neighbours, the Summers, is a playground of happiness and flowers. One day Rose's ball goes over the fence into Mr Wintergarten's garden and, prompted by her mother, Rose visits her frosty next-door neighbour, bearing hot fairy cakes and flowers. What will Mr Wintergarten say?

Reviews

A simple classic tale, expertly told. Books For Your Children Heart-warming. The Oxford Times Bob Graham is in a lass of his own; he is a national treasure. The Sunday morning Herald

About the Author

Winner of the Kate Greenaway and Smarties Gold Medals and the Australian Children’s Book of the Year Award an unprecedented three times, Bob Graham has written and illustrated many acclaimed children’s books, including How to Heal a Broken Wing and Jethro Byrde, Fairy Child.

Bob Graham lives in Victoria, Australia, with his wife, Carolyn, a printmaker who makes landscapes out of lino and wood. They have two grown-up children, Naomi, a musician and refugee worker living in London, and Peter, an artist in Melbourne making big, beautiful, ethereal paintings in oil. They have two grandchildren, Oliver and his older sister Rosie - and to them he is "Bob" rather than "Grandad" (somehow that name has the feeling of pipes, carpet slippers and rocking chairs; and he's not quite ready for that). He reads them books (mostly other people's and, very occasionally, his own), and they just blob around and go to the park, and things like that. Like a grandad and grandchildren are supposed to do.

As a child

"I lived with my mum, dad, my older sister and my grandmother - and a cat called Smokey. There was still a bit of bush around our suburb, where I could muck about. I could sometimes ride my scooter the entire length of the street in the gutter. There were few parked cars back in those days. I read Boys Own annuals from England, Hans Christian Andersen and Brothers Grimm stories from Europe, and America provided the superheroes in comic book form: Superman, Captain Marvel, The Phantom (the ghost who walks) and even Popeye, who constantly rescued his girlfriend, Olive Oyl, from the clutches of Bluto (all it took was a can of spinach). My course for a lifetime of interesting reading was set."

As an artist

"Every time a computer graphics course is advertised in the local paper, I say, "I MUST go." But I always have something else to do, it seems. So I still use a pen dipped in ink, and chalks and watercolour, and scissors and sticky tape. Oh yes, and sometimes I tap out some words on my computer. And that suits me just fine."